


The Flower-Bearing Wind

by Myrrlhe



Series: A chance to change [1]
Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Thanks Matthew 27:46, fgo made me read the actual bible, frame story, more like a 'historical character' study, slight mentions of religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:10:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrrlhe/pseuds/Myrrlhe
Summary: He had always played a part of a lady in literature.





	The Flower-Bearing Wind

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to apologize to the real Hans Christian Andersen for daring to emulate his style. I truly admire you as a writer.  
> Not as a person though because hahahahahaha. ahahahahhahahahahaha. Loser(cited by multiple historians and literary critics.) Then again I'm the one who's written 5k about him so clearly he's the winner here.  
> Please be acquainted with some of his works for the full experience! Also because they're good. The dude knew how to write.  
> All descriptions of Andersen come from love. And a bit of hate. After all, similar people don't get along.

_He sits down, smoothing down crinkled paper with tiny hands that he aren't used to yet. He flicks up a pen, something that he is used to, and sets it down tip first, a motion so familiar that it's almost deja-vu. And he writes._

* * *

Once upon a time,

* * *

_No, that's too cliche._

* * *

In the vast crystal ocean, there is an island, a speck of land, so far off that people could never reach it with their boats or spyglasses no matter how much they try. The island overflows with green, green grass that never loses its luster, vines that stroke the heavens, giving their hands in prayer. Even though they bask in the sunlight all day and night long, they never grow old, or made brittle, always the same. Truly, it is a sight for God's eyes,

* * *

_His pen falters a bit in his grasp. God... His eyes flicker at the cross hanging at the wall before resuming.  
_

* * *

a spot of the earth's green among the plains and world of blue. In that spot of greenery is a simple cottage with the color of hardened sand. And in that cottage lived a little green girl.

* * *

_He smiles a bit at that line. Writing girls had always been his specialty, a comfortable niche he indulged in.  
_

* * *

Every morning the girl would wake up from her bed and spend her day outside playing, whether by climbing the coils of vines to reach the sky above or seeking out the a dark patch in the grass that matched her dusky skin. It would all be the same each day, but the girl did not mind, rather she threw herself into her daily activities with more joy than before. And every night she woud curl back into her bed, the light of the ever-watching moon lulling her to sleep.

* * *

_The pen tip hovers in the air as he contemplates on adding more to the paragraph. Coincidentally it is also night here in Chaldea, the clock's hands pointing a smidgen past midnight. The clock's ticks are quiet, but enough to dry the damp cloth-like silence of the room. The room's other occupant was off in his personal library, and although he itched to see what the famed playwright would do in his natural element, he had his own mission, the call in his previous life. It was the 19th century again, a late night in his furniture-less apartment back in Denmark. The lamp lit the angle on his brief smile. At least he didn't have to worry about getting kicked out anymore._

_He sets off once more, deciding to forgo the extra detail for the moment.  
_

* * *

On one windy day, the little green girl found something peculiar sitting on her windowsill, a flower of a color so spotless and new, that she had never seen before. Dew birthed of cold morning air adorned each petal, but they weren't as clear as the petals themselves. They were absolutely singular in its glister, quiet and cold as the night stars.

* * *

_The door to the room whirred open, and in a panic, he blew out the lamp only to knock it over and set a minature fire on the table. Needless to say his work would have to be continued another day, in a more private place.  
_

 

_  
_

_In a corner of the Chaldea's public library, within a small reality marble made with what magic he has, he sets the pen on the paper once more._

* * *

In an instant, her breath was taken away. A star, just within her reach! She picked it up in great joy, as she threw it in the air, twirling it in her fingers until all the petals were plucked off, leaving a thin ugly stalk.

Upon noticing this, the girl wept in pure sorrow. Her love was gone too quick for her to understand.

* * *

_He fidgets in his position against the bookshelf, the leather pouch around his neck rustling.  
_

* * *

That night, the girl slept among her tears, but as she opened her eyes once more, she found there to be another flower, this time with a color that rivaled even the brightest of suns. The golden petals shined in their glory, and just holding the flower made her bask in its warmth, it was just that blinding.

* * *

_"Mr. Andersen?" He would have knocked over something if there was anything to. Clad in a dark frilly dress is the spirit of the tales of mothers, 'Nursery Rhyme'. To have a book find an author...well it wasn't too out of the question. "Are you writing a new story?" Her eyes sparkle with a shine that only a 'reader' could have.  
_

_The weakest point for an author. "Yes." He admits.  
_

_To his utter dismay, the young spirit immediately sits down on the floor. "I want to see!"_

_The response is immediate. "No." Out of the question. "Absolutely not-" Nursery Rhyme's face twists and he's forced to make a split decision. "I won't say anything about staying, but I can't share my manuscripts. It's strictly business that an author would keep its story secret." He internally sighs in relief as he seemingly nonchalantly goes back to writing, the little girl's happy squeals in the background.  
_

* * *

This time she was careful, placing the flower in a bottle, her utmost treasure that had once floated ashore so many nights ago. There she stared at it even as the sun set and rose again, admiring the flower in the bottle. How the light danced on the colors so! It was better than the first flower, surpassing the stars and moons that speckled the night.

But even then, as the days passed, one by one the petals fell off, littering the bottom of the glass. The girl tried everything she could think of, having the flower bask in the sun, dunking it into the ocean, giving each of its fragile petals a soft kiss. After 7 more moons however, all that was left of the flower was another thin stalk.

* * *

_Yellow was a good fit for Edvard Collins. The pen drives into the sheet in a halt. Always eager to read the first of his drafts, took care of cleaning up after him. He stares at the dot of ink, as it slowly eats away at the sheet, growing larger. A beautiful, amazing, wonderful man. The thought seeps in like the ink.  
_

_"Mr. Andersen?"_

_It was like this. It's always been like this. He sits and writes while others walk and laugh and live and forget. He freezes. Like this...? When had he ever been this bitter?_

_"Mr. Andersen!" He's jolted back to the present. "Is this one going to be a happy ending?"  
_

_Distracted by the phantom itch, he misses the chance of cutting the topic off like he should have. "I've written many happy endings."  
_

_The child spirit pouts. "No they don't! They all die!"_

_"I'd recommend Nightingale and the Snow Queen but I'm sure you're already familiar." His answer is as dry as it gets to be with the girl. Even his child self had 'some' limits.  
_

_Her pout is stubborn. "Kai and the emperor almost die too."_

_"Oh so you do know them." She puffs out her cheeks and he wonders if he's taking this out on her._

_He tugs a bit on the end of his lips, a wordless truce. "Try not taking things at too much face value. Advice from the author himself."_

_Nursery Rhyme sticks out her tongue. "I'm not stupid." She then looks at him, and it has him flinch. Those eyes, those round, sincere eyes. They remind him of... "I'm just tired of being sad."_

_Emotions worth of seventy years freeze on his bones, and Hellfire burned. "...So am I."_ 'I am half-sick of shadows.' said the Lady of Shalott. _He had always played the part of a lady in the written world. The itch had come back, scratching at the corner of his soul. It was something that he just couldn't name, and it filled his mouth with a bad taste._ _  
_

_His eyes are drawn back to his manuscript, marred by the now sizable splotch of black. Maybe he'll get one of those typewriters.  
_

 

_  
_

 

 _Technology. '_ Faster than Mephistopheles carrying Faust within his coat, we feel its immense power as if we are the mages of old' _, if he would so graciously quote from his own autobiography. It was a sentiment that only deepened as he existed here, as he settles in front of the glowing keyboard. A computer... Convenient. Precise. Detached.  
_

_How do you write with this...?_

* * *

Once again, sorrow laid wreck on the fragile girl, as twice as long as her love lasted.

* * *

_There it is.  
_

* * *

To the sky, she cried. "I will never love again, for it only hurts me so."

A nearby daughter of air, who had been flying over the ocean in the middle of her three-hundred year trial for an eternal soul, heard this and descended, wrapping the girl with the summer winds of India.

* * *

_"Thank you, Mr. Karna- Ah!" By this point he's sort of used to the fact that he won't go unbothered. Upon a second glance he sees it's the demi-servant, Mash. Her normal wear is much more flattering than her armor. "Um, Mr. Andersen, what are you doing to Chaldea's main computer?"  
_

_"I'm writing of course. What else would an author be doing." He slowly types another sentence in.  
_

* * *

"You must not forsake love."

* * *

_At once she brightens up. "Is it the sequel to the Litt-"_

_He cuts her off. "I said I'm not writing a sequel."  
_

_"Right, you did..." She sags a bit, but promptly gets back up. "That last line is very romantic though."_

_"Wha-" It takes a second for him to realize that his work is displayed for everyone to see and another second to realize he doesn't know how to turn it off. Defeated, he sags against the cushioned chair. Betrayal is bitter indeed.  
_

_The demi-servant doesn't notice his crisis as she's too busy reading his '''''''unfinished'''''' work. The audacity. "A daughter of air...I think I saw this at the original Little Mermaid you gave me, Mr. Andersen."_

_He gives up. "The English cut that part out for their translation because they thought it was too 'complex' for kids to understand. Now I'm stuck with scales since everybody thinks it was a tragic tale when it's only ever been baseless wish fufillment."_

_"Oh..." Mash's voice is practically crawling on the ground. "I'm sorry..."  
_

_Goodness gracious. "...I'm not mad." Anger was a luxury, something he never had in life. "Once a work is immortalized it's fated to leave the will of the writer. That's just how it is." He sees the girl breathe in relief and sighs himself. Really, it isn't worth that much of a fuss.  
_

* * *

She whispered. "For to denounce it is being without light, as we have been birthed by His love. Without it, we are no worse than the devils, creatures of misery."

* * *

_"Mister Andersen, do you...um." Mash swallows. "Do you really believe there's a God?"  
_

_He gives her a look. "You're really asking me, the author with the middle name 'Christian', if he believes in God?"_

_"Uh..." Her face is alight in a blush. "I was just thinking...about how you're summoned from the throne of heroes. And um..."  
_

_"It doesn't mesh with the idea of Heaven?" He finishes the sentence for her. She nods in affirmation. "First off, why not ask Jeanne d'arc, or one of the saints this question? I'm certain they would be more versed with this topic than I am."  
_

_Her blush only deepens. It wasn't a humiliating question, was it? Really now. "W-well, I did, but their beliefs are just so...strong. When I talk to them about the subject, I just feel so different from them..."_

_"It's called faith." A saint's unfallable faith in God that transcends the boundaries of reality. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm no better than they are in that front. Maybe the throne of heroes exist in a seperate dimension apart from the afterlife. Maybe we're just copies of how we were viewed in the eyes of the public. But God definitely exists...that's what I believe."  
_

_"...Would it be rude for me to ask why?"_

_"...It's just how I lived." He states plainly.  
_

* * *

"If love is full of light, then why is it so sad?" The girl asked. Surely, something that beautiful should not be this cruel!

"For its brings an eternity in the heavens, and that road is steep and harsh." The daugher of air replied. "A time will come when love doesn't bring misery, but boundless happiness, but until then you must wait." Planting a warm kiss on the girl's green brow, the air then flew away, leaving a lasting scent of exotic spices in her wake.

* * *

_"I see...I think I understand a bit." He glances at her, who's fixating on the glowing screen so hard that the words are almost reflecting on her pupils.  
_

_"Do you now." He bites the lower of his lip. That air around her, that wistful air, they reminded him of the look in Nursey Rhyme's eyes, it was-  
_

_She nods with a warm smile, and the name of the phantom itch is at the tip of his tongue. "Since I was raised by magi I don't fully understand God, but believing in love sounds wonderful." Ah. His hands go slack. He understands now. The soul of what he had been lacking.  
_

_Mash continues on, her eyes still shining, shining with love. "I was worried about being defeated in battle and leaving my senior all alone, and I heard from Doctor Romani that religion was used to ease anxieties about death. I was really confused at first, but talking with you made things a lot clearer." She turns to him." Thank you so much for your help."  
_

_He shatters._

 

_  
_

 

* * *

"So I must wait for the day that love will be ready." The girl said outloud. "So wait I shall." She sat on the edge of her island, the ocean soaking her feet in the clear rush of the tide. The sun set and rose again, multiple times over all the while. "Today will be the day." She said when the first red struck the far corner of the sea and "It must be the next." when the moon showered her with silver.

* * *

_"Writing yet another tragic ending, Andersen my friend?"_

* * *

As the days went by, the grass and the vines rustled, calling her back. 'Reconsider.' The tallest vine whispered on an especially hot day. 'There is no need to suffer.' The patches of grass murmered in a particular sunset, when the shadows were unusally long. The girl ignored them all, as she sat at her spot, unmoving as a statue would. She stayed, even as her feet froze from the icy water and her limbs sore from unuse.

On one night, when the ocean was colder than usual by an icy current from the far north, the girl felt a fearsome pain in the form of a thousand needles up her legs. Tears sprung from her innocent eyes, soaking her skin. "Have I fallen from your graces, O loving one?"

* * *

_Three raps against the pad. "Is there a vacancy in the residence?"_

* * *

The little green girl wailed. "Is this my penance for my previous claims? Had it been so wrong of me to feel and be hurt by your light?" She rose, a sudden strong wind shaking her slight frame. "If so, let the cold ocean swallow me so, pulling me under until light can never reach my soul again!" With those words, she threw herself headlong into the inky black water.

Before she could touch the water though the strong wind breathed, claiming her before the ocean could, carrying her up and up into the clouds. In the air, the girl saw the black pierced by a burning red, that of the blazing sun and sighed. If only she could have that color, to give love as much as it did her. At once, the green of her skin blushed a bright bright red, flaking away in a flutter of petals, as-

* * *

_The pad is pushed away from his sight unceremniously. "Sorry to intrude young master, but I seem to be missing a good conversation partner of mine." The mischeivious light in the famed playwright's eyes sparkle, as it always does._

_Not even a compliment from Shakespeare can mend a broken glass however. "...How did you find me?"_

_"Well, there was only one way you could have left Chaldea, via leyshift. As for the matter of where, I assumed you liked France." He gestures to the surrounding, a sea of grassy hills. "Well, more or less the landscape of France than its culture I suppose."_

_"..." Truthfully, it was a beautiful sight. The sun shining in a blue sky, the earth moist and fragrant under his feet. It was things like these that had his heart pound whenever he traveled, a slice of the beauty of the world._

_That wasn't why he came here though._

_With his prolonged silence, Shakespeare sighs liltingly. Ever the performer. "Well I do so hate an unresponsive audience." The man sits down next to him and this time he doesn't even try to hide his flinch. " How shall I enchant thy mind Andersen? A Puck's whisper, or with a witch's leer?"  
_

_The ruffles of his hair are on the verge of covering his eyes. "Am I a tragedy to you," There is that bitterness that he knew he never had possessed. "a jester's skull that you can't help but wax your laments on?"  
_

_"As the creater, I'm obliged to say that you'd make a poor Yorick, not even Hamlet, what with his nationality." Shakespeare winks and he really has to wonder if the man's trying to be attractive on purpose. "Might I suggest a more suitable role, like Juliet?"  
_

_"A lovestruck child?"  
_

_The playwright hmmed. "Why don't you answer that question yourself, little mermaid? What hath happened to your prince of fair?"_

_"Don't drag-" The cheerful yelllow of his smile. He grits his teeth. "My prince was satisfied."_

_Shakespeare spreads his hands wide. "And thus you kiss his bride's brow, and fan your beloved's face, flying away with eternal soul in hand."  
_

_"But I'm still here." He whispers.  
_

_"So indeed." The man replies in an air of nonchalance. He seemed unperturbed by all of this, eyes alight in...interest? Amusement? The fact has his gut lurch._

_Maybe that was why impulse acted before anything else. "Are you satisfied with how we are now?"  
_

_Shakespeare practically jumps at the question. "But of course! A chance to write down stories of several lifetimes, what more of a blessing can God give to a creator?" It's as expected, a solid answer hitting his remark squarely away.  
_

 

_And so his words come back, to punch a hole straight through his chest. "A blessing." A matchstick's Christmas miracle. "That's what 'Andersen' would say. The desire for the eternity of the soul, for all of his pain, his suffering, his ineptitude." Once, in a furniture-less room, a man of sixty years had prayed silently and alone as he had done for decades past. A blessing indeed. "The man that never grew up, who lived seventy years in perpetual vulnerability, a coward," he spits. " who had nothing, not even a shred of others' respect as a person."  
_

_"Yet even so!" The grass tears effortlessly within his grip, the foreign sensation of moist soil amidst his fingers. Yet even so. "Everything was full of light, light that one could believe in, could admire in, could love." The last word comes out choking. Once, an old man called out to a soldier going out to war, asking if he could kiss the back of their hand in tears. Years before, the same man had written letters to a duke, a singer, and a dancer, oh the dancer! But never once had he been a victim to anger even as his heart bled ink. He grips his chest and the burn marks flare underneath the clothes. "This bitterness, this anger, this sardonicism that reign in my heart. The more I think about them, the more foreign they get, yet why are they so easy to delve into? The light, that I saw so plenty long ago, where has it gone to?"_ And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

_The last of his words are a whisper, as his breath dissipates. "I...I now have less than nothing."_

_Shakespeare's coat rustles into his line of vision. "So that is how you think." The lack of theatricals in the other's voice has him look up. The man's body towers over the body of a child, the angle of the sun casting his eyes in shadows. "You are afraid of change."_

_In a bolt he stands, thrusting away the illusion of shadow as he rises above the other's head. "I am afraid of the nature of it, it is unnatural, it is sickly! It is the reason, that I am afraid of, for I...!" His hand feels full and he opens his already open eyes, and sees himself gripping Shakespeare's collar, pulling the man close. His too-small hand tightens. "I've done nothing but..." Love. The rage that had come all too easily falls apart and he lets go. "Perhaps it was I who had my heart pierced by the demon's looking-glass, had it frozen by its curse." And there would be no Gelda's agape to cure him.  
_

_"How distressing...It was not my intention to have thy tears, my friend." Tears? He touches the skin of his cheek. Indeed it is wet. Something touches his hand, grabs hold of it and he flinches the most violently than any other. Shakespeare does not let go however. "If you are worried about the shard, then let the tears melt your heart, let it wash away the glass." Still gently holding his hand, the man guides it to the left of his chest. The droplets left on his fingers are warm, as they soak through the vest. "See? You have recovered, Andersen my friend."_

_He, Hans Christian Andersen, cries. He sobs the cry of the shadow who had lost its soul, the regretful woes of the fir-tree. He falls to his knees as the snowman would, whether due to weather or the stove, as the woeful nightingale sang to its death at the bed of the rose. All the while, he grabs onto the hand offered to him, onto the warmth of another person like a lifeline._

_A warm chuckle. "You aren't so different from before, with how you cry of lost and recovered love. Still, a child needs to grow up someday." Shakespeare says, wrapping his hands with another of his own. The warmth burns his heart into the blue, endless sky. "I very much look forward to the you as an adult, and the play called life he would lead. You, who had eternal youth."_

_"You, Hans Christian Andersen."_

 

__

 

* * *

The little green girl, upon days of waiting, had grown tired however. 'I had waited and waited, but love still has not come.' She thought. 'Maybe love is sleeping somewhere far and beautiful, for it must be to house something as powerful as love, and I must wake it up, and tell it that I am here and ready

Climbing the highest vine, she called to the winds. "O Wind, who had sent me love twice, this time send me into the air, for I must wake love's slumber."

A flock of seagulls upon hearing the girl's cry, flew down to greet her. "What is this love's slumber that you speak, green one?"

"I have waited for love for so many days and nights that not even the grass blades on my island are enough." She answered. "So it shall be I who must come to love, who must have forgotten in its sweet respite."

"Your words are strange to us." The seagull that was bigger than the rest of the others, hence the leader of the flock said. "Love comes to us by the air under our wings, and the plentiful fish in the sea."

"Maybe love is different for everyone." The girl replied, who was quite confused by the seabird's words.

"Maybe so. In a shore near here, there are many trinkets gathered from the ocean's corners. Perhaps you can find your love there."

* * *

_In the year 1875, on a summer day, an old man lied in his bed, breath rattling with each draw. He would die, oh so very soon.  
_

* * *

Each seagull helped carry the girl, one holding her by her green curls, two by her hands, and the other two on her feet. Together they flew, carrying the girl across the ocean.

The air that had stayed so still was now a whirlwind, washing the dust from her hair, streaming against her skin in an intimate whisper. Every touch was caring, yet beautiful, leaving her shivering for more. "Is this what you feel everyday?" She asked.

"That and more." The head seagull replied. "It is a shame you do not have wings, for love would always be close no matter where you are."

* * *

_His diary already complete, the old man had nothing to do but wait until Death took his hand. As an old man would, he had already accepted his fate, no throes of desperation or tears of fear. He had already rid of the letter telling his undead status. He would no longer be needing it. The leather pouch, containing the letter to his first love, rubbed against his chest as the blanket rustled. Ah, even with the eternity of the soul looming near, there were still so many regrets.  
_

* * *

As the sun was starting to set, a shore made itself be seen. Even from afar, the girl could see things moving. They looked the same as she, save for the color, as the big ones carried boxes and stood while the little ones ran about with energy. She watched them with a whole fascination. How the little ones moved with such excitement! She wanted to join them, to be as happy and joyful as they were.

"Those are called children." A seagull said, noticing her gaze. "They are as wild as the waves, and as twice as malicious. They would throw stones at us, envious of our wings."

"That can not be so." She insisted. "Something that joyful and bright can not be bad. Please, let me meet them." Upon her insistence, the birds lowered the girl onto the ground.

The girl ran up to the children, eager to join their tomfoolery. But the children, upon seeing the alien color of her skin, yelled in fright. They threw stones at her soft skin, as they shouted harsh words that hurt more than the stones themselves. Bruised and hurt, the little green girl ran, shedding tears.

* * *

_If God could take pity on the poor soul that is he...if that he would ever have another chance at life..._

* * *

In her tearful run, the girl had escaped to a nearby alleyway. How could this have be, where was all the joy gone? Then she remembered how love had hurt her back in the island. "I have been a fool." She sobbed. "Oh how I wish the seagulls were here once more."

During her lament, a mute beggar girl who had woken from her nap, walked over to her, fascinated. She had never seen such beautiful color on a person's skin. She held the green girl's hands and held them with her own, as she marveled the girl.

The girl looked up. "You are very warm." The girl who was holding her hands looked like one of the children, but instead of fear, her eyes were filled with a tender light. It made her think of her two flowers and she stopped crying.  Perhaps this girl was what she had been looking for.

Like she would do with her flowers, she brought the girl's hands to her lips, giving each of them a soft kiss. When the rough skin of the beggar girl felt smooth as the petals would under her lips, she knew that she had found her next flower. The green girl looked at the child again, who had turned a scarlet red from her bold actions. It was a beautiful color, brighter than the blood of life. 'Yes' She thought. 'I have found my love.'

* * *

_That just once, he could love and be loved._

* * *

 

 The End.


End file.
